Sourav Ganguly has been responsible for the advent of the golden generation of Indian cricket. He is the man responsible for many of India’s biggest victories and accomplishment in the modern era. Sourav Ganguly became the captain of the Indian team when the team was still recovering from the Match fixing scandal that lead to various top players being banned from international cricket, either for life or for a certain period of time.

It was at this moment that Sourav took the responsibility of the team after Sachin Tendulkar resigned from the post. He took the team to heights that Indian cricket had never seen before. Most importantly he taught the team to win, at home and at alien conditions.

Here’s taking a look at some of the most exhilarating moments from our own Dada’s Cricketing career.

1) Natwest Series 2002: The legendary Moment that saw Dada remove his shirt and swing it over his head to get back at Flintoff after winning the 2002 Natwest trophy.

2) Test Series victory in Pakistan: This was something that the Indian team hadn’t been able to do ever in the cricketing history. But the team under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly not only won a test in Pakistan, but also went on to win the series and the One day series that follow that. A result that every Indian was proud of.

3) World Cup 2003: The Indian team was build up as an up and coming team and were far from being the favourites when they entered the world cup in 2003. The team was also subject to some scrutiny and criticism after poor performances in the first 2 games. It was this when Sourav Ganguly the captain picked up his bag of tricks and made took the Indian team to the Finals of the tournament, only to lose to the invincible Aussies. Sourav not only led the team well but also scored 3 centuries in the tournament.

4) Champions Trophy Triumphs: Dada led the team to not 1 but 2 champions’ trophy finals managing to grab the title once, when the shared the honours with the Lankans at their home ground, a game that India looked like winning from the get go.

5) Success against Australia: Sourav Ganguly proved to be the thorn in Steve Waugh’s flesh not on one but on two occasions. First, he stopped the invincible Australian side which was on a 16 test match winning streak in Kolkata and then ruined Waugh’s retirement party in the 2004-05 series.

Ganguly was not only a great Captain but one of the greatest batsman the world has seen. He was named the sixth greatest batsman in ODI history by Wisden and has over 18 thousand runs in International Cricket for India, he is the third highest run getter for India in History only behind two of his batting colleagues Sachin Tendulkar ( the all time leader) and Rahul Dravid.

Ganguly’s Record as a Captain is undoubtedly the best that any Indian Captain has ever seen, barring maybe just MS Dhoni. Out of the 49 Test matches in which he has captained the Indian team, he has won 21 and lost just 13, a statistic that earned him a lot of respect from the Cricketing fraternity and forced even his critics to declare him as the greatest captain India has ever seen.